On January 25, 2004, the Mars Rover
“Opportunity” landed in a small crater on the Martian plain called
Meridiani Planum. A few days later, Opportunity photographed a sight
that could alter our ideas about the recent history of the solar
system: Scattered around the walls of the crater were BB-sized
spherules. Their blue-gray color set them apart from the reddish hue
of the iron-rich Martian soil and suggested a name for
them—blueberries.

The left half of the picture above shows these
Martian blueberries at different magnifications. They are embedded
in what appears to be fused layers of soil that are exposed on the
margins of the crater.

As Opportunity rolled further across the
Martian landscape, it found a profusion of blueberries.
Investigative team members speculated that countless numbers of the
spherules lie embedded in the Martian soil. Over time, erosion has
exposed large numbers of them and has left many lying on the
surface.

After spectroscopic analysis, the Martian
spherules were identified as “hematite concretions”. Hematite is an
iron-rich mineral and is the primary constituent of the soil
surrounding the blueberries. Geologists surmised that they are
Martian counterparts of terrestrial concretions, which are commonly
believed to have formed through water-induced mineral leakage. But
this only widens the mystery. Theories about the formative processes
of concretions are little more than untested guesses. No geologist
has seen a concretion being made or has made one in a laboratory—or
has disproved a competing theory. (But geologists have shown
that the more a guess is repeated, the more it’s apt to be called a
fact.)

For many years
Electric Universe theorists have proposed that concretions be
examined for evidence of formation through electric discharge. In
our Picture of the Day for August 27, 2004,
Blueberries on Mars,
we compared the Martian spherules to hematite concretions from Texas
and “Moqui balls” from Utah. We gave several reasons for investigating the
possible electrical origins of concretions, geodes, and other
mysterious spherical geologic forms.

The conventional
theories, we noted, are based exclusively on chemistry and
mechanics. But there is another phenomenon that produces
spheres—electric discharge. In the plasma lab, electric arcs create
tiny spheres that are often hollow, such as the hematite concretions
seen above. Electric discharge tends to produce spherical layering
and a distinct equator and pole, because the electromagnetic force
"squeezes" perpendicular to the current that creates it. These
characteristics are also found in the "natural" spherules. The Moqui
balls pictured here
(lower left) have both equatorial bulges and polar markings.
Rock-cutters recommend that you will get a better display from a
geode if you first locate the equator and poles, then cut across the
poles.

Even before this Picture of the Day was
written, the plasma physicist CJ Ransom, of Vemasat Laboratories,
had set up an experiment to test the electrical explanation of
concretions and Martian blueberries. He obtained a quantity of
hematite and blasted it with an electric arc. The results are seen
in the right half of the image above. The embedded spheres created
by the arc appear to replicate many of the features of the
blueberries on Mars. No other laboratory process has achieved a
similar result. It should encourage further experiments using higher
energies.

Dr. Ransom’s experimental work has laid a
foundation for a radical reassessment of planetary geology. If
concretions can only be replicated by electric discharge, we
can no longer view them—or the strata in which they appear—through
the lens of prior theory. (See tomorrow’s Picture of the Day for
more on concretions.)

In the matter at hand (hematite
concretions), the direct evidence will be difficult to ignore.
Dr C.J. Ransom's and Wallace Thornhill's
paper on the laboratory-generated spherules will be presented at the
national meeting of the American Physical Society, in Tampa Florida,
April 17, 2005. The abstract is available at the APS web site--